Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech are.
Speaker 1: It's time for the tech news for Thursday October fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Not an official tech news thing. But
Speaker 1: I'm feeling a little bit better. I hope I'm sounding better.
Speaker 1: I know my voice has had quite a journey over
Speaker 1: this last week. It's not I'm not at one hundred
Speaker 1: percent by any means, but you got to keep on,
Speaker 1: keep it on, all right, Let's get to the tech news.
Speaker 1: First up, let's talk zero day vulnerabilities again. So as
Speaker 1: a reminder, the term zero day refers to a case
Speaker 1: where software developers are unaware that the product they've made
Speaker 1: and released contains vulnerabilities. And to be clear, it's not
Speaker 1: just software. It can be other stuff too, but we
Speaker 1: often talk about in terms of software. So they release something,
Speaker 1: there's a security vulnerability in it that they're not aware of.
Speaker 1: That means there's a chance for bad actors to discover
Speaker 1: that vulnerability and then create an exploit that leverages that vulnerability.
Speaker 1: And since the developers may still remain unaware that there's
Speaker 1: a problem in the first place. There's no one to
Speaker 1: prevent that from happening, or even to react in a
Speaker 1: timely way until someone discovers that something hinky is going on. Now,
Speaker 1: once developers do become aware of the problem, they can respond,
Speaker 1: but by then the damage may have already been done,
Speaker 1: at least to some extent. Now, the reason I mentioned
Speaker 1: this is that Microsoft released patches to two open source libraries.
Speaker 1: In this case, a library determined programming that refers to
Speaker 1: a collection of resources that can be used by various
Speaker 1: computer programs. So, according to tech Crunch, products that tapped
Speaker 1: into these two libraries, Microsoft products that had been using
Speaker 1: these two libraries included the Edge web browser, Microsoft Teams,
Speaker 1: and Skype. And just to be clear, Microsoft was not
Speaker 1: the only company affected by this. These are open source libraries,
Speaker 1: so lots of other programs from other companies also tap
Speaker 1: into these. Google issued its own patches for Chrome, Firefox
Speaker 1: did the same. Well, I think we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about Apple later doing the same sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So Microsoft has not commented on whether hackers targeted any
Speaker 1: of their products through these vulnerabilities, nor has the company
Speaker 1: indicated whether or not they could even determine that in
Speaker 1: the first place. A scammy advertisement that featured a deep
Speaker 1: faked mister Beast popped up on TikTok and has now
Speaker 1: become part of a larger conversation around AI and deep
Speaker 1: fake technology and fraudulent advertising. So mister Beast, in case
Speaker 1: you don't know, is the YouTube handle of Jimmy Donaldson,
Speaker 1: and he's mostly known for doing stuff like giving away
Speaker 1: massive sums of money or opening up a burger chain
Speaker 1: and then later on suing it and being sued by it.
Speaker 1: But the burger chain story, while fascinating, probably belongs to
Speaker 1: another podcast. Anyway, mister Beast is super duper Internet famous.
Speaker 1: I joke about being Internet famous, No, I am unknown.
Speaker 1: Mister Beast has more than one hundred and eighty eight
Speaker 1: million subscribers on YouTube. That makes him the most popular
Speaker 1: individual on YouTube by subscriptions. There is technically another channel
Speaker 1: that actually has more subscribers. That is a music label
Speaker 1: in India that has more subscribers than mister Beast. But
Speaker 1: if you're talking about a single person, mister Beast is
Speaker 1: like top of the pile. Anyway. In this ad that
Speaker 1: appeared on TikTok, the AI generated mister Beast claimed that
Speaker 1: he will sell ten thousand iPhone fifteen pro smartphones for
Speaker 1: the princely sum of two American dollars. Now, these are
Speaker 1: phones that usually go for like thirteen hundred dollars or
Speaker 1: more depending upon what version you buy, and since mister
Speaker 1: Beast actually has this long history of stunts that involve
Speaker 1: giving stuff away to people, you can imagine how this
Speaker 1: ad might actually fool folks into thinking that it's legit
Speaker 1: and maybe they pay two bucks to try and get
Speaker 1: an iPhone fifteen pro. TikTok has since removed this ad,
Speaker 1: but the fact that it went up in the first
Speaker 1: place despite the platform's review process is concerning because TikTok
Speaker 1: says it uses both human review and AI to analyze
Speaker 1: ads before allowing them to go up on the platform.
Speaker 1: If that's true, this ad somew i managed to slip
Speaker 1: through those controls and was on the platform. People were
Speaker 1: reporting it, Mister Beast himself commented on it. So it's
Speaker 1: another example of how deep fakes can be harmful. Of course,
Speaker 1: this isn't you know, a surprise. We know deep fakes
Speaker 1: can be harmful. They've been harmful ever since they were
Speaker 1: unleashed a few years ago. Other folks who have said
Speaker 1: that they have been deep faked into ads without their
Speaker 1: consent include America's Dad you know, Tom Hanks, David S.
Speaker 1: Pumpkins if You're not familiar, and also an anchor for
Speaker 1: CBS named Gail King says that that has happened to them.
Speaker 1: So if you happen to see an ad that features
Speaker 1: me hawking the latest I don't know sports gambling app, well,
Speaker 1: someone done darn faked me, because I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal reports that part of the US
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commissions lawsuit against Amazon hinges on a quote
Speaker 1: unquote secret algorithm. Now the algorithm does exist or did exist,
Speaker 1: and its code name was Project NeSSI. The FTC claims
Speaker 1: that quote Amazon uses its extensive surveillance network to block
Speaker 1: price competition by detecting and deterring discounting, artificially inflating prices
Speaker 1: on and off Amazon, and depriving rivals of the ability
Speaker 1: to gain scale by offering lower prices end quote. So,
Speaker 1: according to the FTC, Amazon manipulated the market so that
Speaker 1: when merchants tried competitive practices such as cutting product prices,
Speaker 1: the algorithm essentially kicked in to counteract that move so
Speaker 1: that the competitor would see fewer sales. So, if you
Speaker 1: are a merchant and you cut prices and your sales
Speaker 1: don't go up, well there's no reason to keep the
Speaker 1: prices low. If your sales have remained the same, you
Speaker 1: might as well sell things for more money, because otherwise
Speaker 1: you're just cutting into your profit margins. So the FTC
Speaker 1: is saying this is what Amazon was doing in order
Speaker 1: to keep competitors to keep their prices higher. Amazon reportedly
Speaker 1: stopped using this algorithm in twenty nineteen, but the FTC's
Speaker 1: point is that the company was stacking the deck for
Speaker 1: its own benefit, a benefit that amounted to more than
Speaker 1: a billion dollars in revenue according to Wall Street Journal's sources.
Speaker 1: An Amazon representative told Ours Technica that this complaint is
Speaker 1: a mischaracterization of what Project NeSSI was all about. The
Speaker 1: rep says that Nessi's purpose was to prevent Amazon's price
Speaker 1: matching practice from making unsustainable changes to product prices. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you know, making sure that Amazon wasn't
Speaker 1: going to sell something for less than what it cost
Speaker 1: Amazon to make or procure it, or ship it. Amazon
Speaker 1: says that its policy was to try and match lowest prices,
Speaker 1: and that this is not meant to drive prices up,
Speaker 1: but rather to be more competitive. They said, it's the
Speaker 1: exact opposite of what ft claims. The FTC says Amazon
Speaker 1: was actually manipulating the system so that the lowest prices
Speaker 1: would be driven up much higher than they would be
Speaker 1: in a true free market, and that Amazon was again
Speaker 1: gaming the system. It's all pretty complicated, and it might
Speaker 1: boil down to the possibility that Amazon was essentially using
Speaker 1: a powerful algorithm to manipulate weaker algorithms that were belonging
Speaker 1: to various competitors, all in an effort to fix pricing
Speaker 1: levels that would favor Amazon. Apple has released an update
Speaker 1: to iOS seventeen, which means the most current version as
Speaker 1: of this episode is iOS seventeen dot dot three. The
Speaker 1: update includes security fixes that address some vulnerabilities, including a
Speaker 1: kernel exploit, as well as attatched to one of those
Speaker 1: open source libraries we talked about with the Microsoft story,
Speaker 1: and the update also addresses a problem that some iPhone
Speaker 1: fifteen users have reported, you know that their smartphone tends
Speaker 1: to run a little hot. Apple says that the reason
Speaker 1: for the hot phones mostly falls to software and also
Speaker 1: to those darn USBC chargers. You see, Apple tried to
Speaker 1: warn you that switching away from the company's proprietary charging
Speaker 1: technology would cause problems, and here it is. I should
Speaker 1: also add that folks have speculated that maybe the processor
Speaker 1: in the iPhone fifteen could be partially at fault. Apple
Speaker 1: says that's not the case anyway. If you do have
Speaker 1: an iPhone, you might want to check to see if
Speaker 1: the version of iOS running on your device is the
Speaker 1: current one. Meanwhile, Google launched its Pixel eight and Pixel
Speaker 1: eight Pro smartphones this week, as well as the Pixel
Speaker 1: Watch two. Now smartphones have Google's own Tensor G three
Speaker 1: chipset to power everything. The Pro model has a fifty
Speaker 1: megapixel rear camera, a forty eight megapixel telephoto lens with
Speaker 1: five times zoom, and a forty eight megapixel ultra wide camera.
Speaker 1: So Google is continuing to embrace the whole photography aspect
Speaker 1: of smartphones, which you know it's been doing for several
Speaker 1: generations now. The Pro also has a temperature sensor that
Speaker 1: Google says you could use to measure the temperature of
Speaker 1: like a surface, you know, kind of like those gadgets
Speaker 1: that barbecue enthusiasts use to make sure that their coals
Speaker 1: are hot enough to I don't know, seer a pig
Speaker 1: or whatever. The Google Pixel eight Pro starts at nine
Speaker 1: hundred ninety nine bucks. That's one hundred dollars increase over
Speaker 1: the previous generation's Pro model. The standard Pixel eight not
Speaker 1: the Pro, but the regular Pixel eight is a little
Speaker 1: bit smaller than the previous generation, the Pixel seven. It
Speaker 1: lacks the telephoto lens that the Pro has, but it
Speaker 1: also comes with the ultra wide camera, and it starts
Speaker 1: at six hundred ninety nine dollars. That's also an increase
Speaker 1: over the previous generation. The phones also launched with Android fourteen,
Speaker 1: and Google has promised seven years of ongoing OS upgrade support,
Speaker 1: which is best in class as far as OS support
Speaker 1: goes in the smartphone industry. The watch, meanwhile, the pixel
Speaker 1: Watch two, has a few cosmetic changes compared to the
Speaker 1: original pixel Watch. It also has some updated sensors, and
Speaker 1: it has a new processor, the snap Dragon W five,
Speaker 1: and that means that the pixel Watch two should be
Speaker 1: better at conserving battery life more effectively than the original
Speaker 1: pixel Watch was. There were a few other announcements that
Speaker 1: Google made as well, including one that says Google is
Speaker 1: going to unleash a new AI enhanced version of the
Speaker 1: Google Assistant on all of us at some point in
Speaker 1: the near future. And I for one welcome our robot overlords. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back
Speaker 1: with some more tech news. We're back. So last week,
Speaker 1: Meta pushed out an update to Messenger for some users
Speaker 1: a small group that would allow them to create stickers
Speaker 1: through AI generation, something that would presumably find its way
Speaker 1: into various Meta platforms. And it didn't take long at
Speaker 1: all for people to show that this tool as designed
Speaker 1: has no real safeguards against stuff like intellectual property infringement,
Speaker 1: like infringing upon trademarks and copyright and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: because users created stickers where they prompted the AI to make,
Speaker 1: you know, images of popular characters like Mickey Mouse doing
Speaker 1: stuff that the Walt Disney Company absolutely would object to,
Speaker 1: like having Mickey Mouse holding a bloody knife. That's not
Speaker 1: an image that the Walt Disney Company would be likely
Speaker 1: to approve of. Several folks pointed out that it seems
Speaker 1: like the people at Meta a very little, if any
Speaker 1: thought as to the consequences of rolling out an AI
Speaker 1: generative sticker tool. Now, on the other hand, you could
Speaker 1: make the argument that what Meta is doing is essentially
Speaker 1: a limited beta rollout, and that the whole purpose of
Speaker 1: the beta is to find exactly what sorts of issues
Speaker 1: exist with the features before they push it out to
Speaker 1: the world at large. You know, it's better to find
Speaker 1: out that your tool is I don't know, violating intellectual
Speaker 1: property laws with a small group rather than your overall
Speaker 1: user base, right, I guess there's some logic to that. Now,
Speaker 1: I personally wonder if perhaps some of this could have
Speaker 1: been handled before it actually reached the beta test stage. Personally,
Speaker 1: I see this as another indication that some companies are
Speaker 1: really rushing a bit too quickly to incorporate generative AI
Speaker 1: into products, and then the grand scheme of things are
Speaker 1: actually making it harder on themselves. But again, that's that's
Speaker 1: just my personfctive. I don't mean to suggest that that's
Speaker 1: the correct way to look at things, or even that
Speaker 1: I'm necessarily accurate in my estimation. It's just the way
Speaker 1: it seems to be unfolding to me. Assuming an early
Speaker 1: report from Reuters has been accurate. Meta also held another
Speaker 1: round of layoffs yesterday. This time the division that was
Speaker 1: said to have been affected the most was Reality Labs.
Speaker 1: Now that's the part of Meta that's working on future projects,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff like the metaverse. So according to this report,
Speaker 1: the specific people who were targeted by these layoffs worked
Speaker 1: on creating custom silicon products for Meta. So these are
Speaker 1: the products that power stuff like mixed reality hardware. So
Speaker 1: think of it like processors and such, and the mixed
Speaker 1: reality includes stuff like virtual reality, augmented reality, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So this does not mean that Meta has
Speaker 1: lost confidence in the metaverse concept in general, or even
Speaker 1: lost confidence with mixed reality in particular. Instead, it may
Speaker 1: indicate that Meta wasn't seeing positive results as far as
Speaker 1: developing their own chipsets. They weren't seeing the benefit of
Speaker 1: doing that versus say, relying upon external providers and purchasing
Speaker 1: chips from established companies that specialize in that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So I think the common wisdom is that Meta just
Speaker 1: decided that it makes more sense to purchase stuff essentially
Speaker 1: off the shelf rather than develop it in house for
Speaker 1: this particular product. Okay, time to head over to the
Speaker 1: platform X formerly known as Twitter. Elon Musk has made
Speaker 1: another change, one that strikes me as a little odd,
Speaker 1: and it was definitely Musk who demanded this change because
Speaker 1: he said so himself. Anyway, that change is to remove
Speaker 1: article headlines from posts on X. So let's say that
Speaker 1: you're on X. Wow, that sounds terrible, right, not ecstasy.
Speaker 1: You're on the platform X and you're posting an article
Speaker 1: to your post used to be called a tweet. It's
Speaker 1: hard to call anything anything these days. So you're posting
Speaker 1: an article on your X platform. And now that means
Speaker 1: that people who follow you, instead of seeing a headline,
Speaker 1: they're going to see a blurb from the article followed
Speaker 1: by an image and they can click through to go
Speaker 1: and read the article there. But they're not going to
Speaker 1: get the headline that actually indicates what the article is about.
Speaker 1: And that seems really weird, right, because I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know a lot of articles bury the lead, so
Speaker 1: the blurb at the top might not actually indicate what
Speaker 1: the article itself is really about. You might not actually
Speaker 1: have a good feeling as to what is this article
Speaker 1: all about. And of course there are also those terrible
Speaker 1: articles that will spend five hundred words just rambling about
Speaker 1: the obvious in an effort to drive more AD impressions,
Speaker 1: and you have to just keep scrolling and scrolling and
Speaker 1: scrolling for like a full minute before you get to
Speaker 1: the actual point of the article. I hate those anyway.
Speaker 1: Musk says that this is going to quote greatly improve
Speaker 1: the esthetics end quote. Now maybe I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't understand what aesthetics are being improved by this,
Speaker 1: But if I had to guess, I'd say what Musk
Speaker 1: is actually hoping for is a way to discourage people
Speaker 1: from posting articles on X in the first place, because
Speaker 1: clicking on an article takes your eyeballs away from X,
Speaker 1: and Musk really needs your eyes to stay on X itself.
Speaker 1: So maybe what he's hoping is that people will just
Speaker 1: kind of stop posting links and instead they'll summarize an article,
Speaker 1: or they'll give their own opinion on a topic, and
Speaker 1: they'll write longer posts, and this will prompt more engagement
Speaker 1: on the platform. That way, because a lot of reports
Speaker 1: have said that excessing massive drops in AD revenue ever
Speaker 1: since Musk took over. That being said, Linda Yakarina, the
Speaker 1: actual CEO of X, has claimed that ninety percent of
Speaker 1: x's top advertisers have returned to the platform to place
Speaker 1: ads there, but all the analysis I've seen has suggested
Speaker 1: that between like fifty to sixty five percent of revenue
Speaker 1: is down every month because of various issues that advertisers
Speaker 1: have with the platform. So if I were a betting fellow,
Speaker 1: I'm not, but if I were, I would place a
Speaker 1: wager that this is all really part of a move
Speaker 1: to try and reverse the bad fortune of x Reuter's
Speaker 1: reports that BlackBerry is splitting into two companies. I was
Speaker 1: actually surprised to learn that BlackBerry is still a thing.
Speaker 1: I haven't been keeping up with that company for ages.
Speaker 1: But one of the two companies will be focusing on
Speaker 1: BlackBerry's Internet of Things business that's primarily in car connected systems,
Speaker 1: and the other one will center around cybersecurity. Now, once
Speaker 1: upon a time, BlackBerry was synonymous with smartphones. This was
Speaker 1: actually in the era before smartphones had touch screens and
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, before the iPhone. Now, back when
Speaker 1: smartphones had physical keys that you would use to type
Speaker 1: on and only business executives typically owned one. Now, according
Speaker 1: to the Globe and Mail, the driving force behind this
Speaker 1: decision is to provide more shareholder value and to drum
Speaker 1: up interest in the investor community because BlackBerry has been
Speaker 1: kind of stagnating recently. Whether this will actually work and
Speaker 1: achieve those goals remains to be seen, but the spinoff
Speaker 1: is supposed to happen at the beginning of the next
Speaker 1: fiscal year for BlackBerry, and for BlackBerry that means it
Speaker 1: starts on March first. One story that I've somehow missed
Speaker 1: over the last month has to do with a company,
Speaker 1: and I use the term loosely called AOG technics all right, So,
Speaker 1: several major airlines, which include American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines,
Speaker 1: and now Delta Airlines, have found out that some of
Speaker 1: the in ees on some of their aircraft contained parts
Speaker 1: that had fraudulent certification attached to them. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to the aerospace industry, everything is supposed to be
Speaker 1: carefully tested and documented and certified. You've got agencies like
Speaker 1: here in the US we have the FAA that oversees
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff, and it's all for the protection
Speaker 1: of the public as well as for the companies right
Speaker 1: to make sure that everything is as buttoned up as
Speaker 1: it can be to be as safe as possible. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of airlines have aircraft that use a jet
Speaker 1: engine that was made by CFM International, and there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with the engines, like, the engines are fine. But
Speaker 1: when it comes time to service or to repair an engine,
Speaker 1: it's not uncommon for these airlines to rely upon a
Speaker 1: third party repair company, and those third party repair companies
Speaker 1: will use various brokers in the industry to acquire spare parts,
Speaker 1: which then they use to replace stuff that's either ending
Speaker 1: the nearing the end of its service life, or showing
Speaker 1: signs of wear and tear, whatever it may be. So
Speaker 1: AOG Technics was a part of this supply chain. It
Speaker 1: was one of these brokers and its job was to
Speaker 1: source and certify parts which it would then sell to
Speaker 1: these various repair companies. It was claiming that these were
Speaker 1: certified parts, and as it turns out, that certification was fake.
Speaker 1: Now this means the reliability of those engine parts is
Speaker 1: brought into question. It doesn't automatically mean the parts are
Speaker 1: terrible or that they'll break immediately, but you just don't
Speaker 1: know because they were never certified. So the company itself,
Speaker 1: AOG Technics, has a single shareholder, which happens to be
Speaker 1: the company's founder and director a fellow named jose Zamora Yerralla,
Speaker 1: who has done a really good job of avoiding the
Speaker 1: press as this story has unfolded. The consequences of this
Speaker 1: issue is that the airlines affected have been pulling aircraft
Speaker 1: that have these engines out of service until the parts
Speaker 1: involved can be replaced. So essentially they're having to have
Speaker 1: the whole repair job done again and the fraudulent part
Speaker 1: swapped out for one that is truly certified. AOG Technics
Speaker 1: has essentially kind of gone away in a puff of smoke.
Speaker 1: It's a heck of a story. It really illustrates how
Speaker 1: complex supply chains can be, and how you can have
Speaker 1: unexpected weaknesses in those supply chains, and that you know,
Speaker 1: those weaknesses can include people who are running dishonest businesses.
Speaker 1: I will keep an eye on this story as it continues,
Speaker 1: because I'm very curious to hear how this even happened.
Speaker 1: AOG Technics, from why I understand, has been around since
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. It's had a kind of questionable history, you know,
Speaker 1: with its with its own corporate address, bouncing around the UK,
Speaker 1: never really staying in one place for any length of time,
Speaker 1: and not apparently attached to like a actual physical office.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like there's been some fairly questionable proceedings
Speaker 1: going on for a while, and I'm curious to learn more.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure we'll get more information as the story unfolds. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to take another quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: I got a few more stories and a couple of
Speaker 1: recommendations for y'all, but first let's thank our sponsors. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. So a few years ago, the video game
Speaker 1: publisher Ubisoft, which is responsible for franchises like Assassin's Creed,
Speaker 1: had a massive scandal, like a really big, nasty scandal
Speaker 1: with a Nubisoft that involved you know, corporate culture and
Speaker 1: sexual harassment and preferential treatment and all these sorts of
Speaker 1: allegations that are absolutely terrible. The revelations shook the company significantly,
Speaker 1: with multiple executives being shown the door as a result
Speaker 1: of the allegations. But you would you could actually say
Speaker 1: that the problems that were later revealed that Activision Blizzard
Speaker 1: ultimately kind of pulled focus away from Ubisoft. Like it
Speaker 1: it was. It was something like a year later where
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard story started to break and it just started
Speaker 1: to look like it wasn't just a terrible systemic problem
Speaker 1: with an Ubi Solft, but perhaps a wider problem throughout
Speaker 1: parts of the video game development industry. Anyway. Now, the
Speaker 1: new part of the news is that French authorities have
Speaker 1: arrested five former Ubisoft executives. This is according to Engadget,
Speaker 1: and these include executives who left UBI Soft disgrace in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty after being named in employee accusations as being
Speaker 1: guilty of, to put it, lightly, unprofessional conduct. The French
Speaker 1: authorities said they spent more than a full year investigating
Speaker 1: the various claims and that that led to these arrests.
Speaker 1: Like these were serious allegations. A lawyer for the plaintiffs
Speaker 1: say that the issues indicate a systemic problem with quote
Speaker 1: unquote sexual violence within the company. I should also add
Speaker 1: that leadership at Ubisoft, after this scandal had become huge
Speaker 1: news committed to changing corporate culture. I am uncertain how
Speaker 1: far that transformation has actually gone to date. I would
Speaker 1: hope that it's been significant and that there really has
Speaker 1: been massive change within the organization because the stories that
Speaker 1: were coming out about Ubisoft around twenty twenty were absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 1: So I hope that that actually has been a big change,
Speaker 1: you just didn't see much information about it after the
Speaker 1: initial scandal made headlines. The United States FCC has told
Speaker 1: the Dish Network that it has to fork over one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand bucks as a fine for littering. Yeah,
Speaker 1: serious stuff. Specifically, this deals with littering space with a
Speaker 1: defunct satellite. The FCC says that the Dish network had
Speaker 1: a responsibility to move a satellite into a so called
Speaker 1: graveyard orbit at the end of that satellite's functional life.
Speaker 1: But the FCC says the Dish Network failed to do that,
Speaker 1: and so the old satellite is now just taking up
Speaker 1: space in an orbit that could pose as a future
Speaker 1: hazard for some other spacecraft. It's now space junk, and
Speaker 1: it's in an orbit that should otherwise be usable. So
Speaker 1: this is the first time the FCC has actually fined
Speaker 1: a company for contributing to space debris. The agency only
Speaker 1: recently got the authority to be able to do that,
Speaker 1: But now that means we got ourselves a precedent, So
Speaker 1: I suspect we will see this used more in the future. Okay,
Speaker 1: Like I said, I got a couple of article recommendations
Speaker 1: for y'all, but before that, I have one last little
Speaker 1: bit of news, and again this is Apple news, but
Speaker 1: it's a little more light and fluffy, so I thought
Speaker 1: I would leave it to the very end. Apple has
Speaker 1: allowed the luxury solid gold Apple Watch product to wind
Speaker 1: down as it were. The company has said it will
Speaker 1: no longer offer servicing and repairs on the seventeen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars watch. By the way, this watch has not had
Speaker 1: software support since twenty eighteen, so we're talking the hardware
Speaker 1: support at this point. So Apple now has designated this
Speaker 1: luxury watch as being obsolete, which kind of underlines and
Speaker 1: bolds a massive issue with smart watches compared to a
Speaker 1: traditional luxury watch. So a traditional luxury watch is expected
Speaker 1: to you know, kind of hold on to its value
Speaker 1: and to operate indefinitely, assuming you treat it well and
Speaker 1: you know, you know, you occasionally have its service to
Speaker 1: tune it up in everything. But smart watches lose value
Speaker 1: when the company that made it no longer offers software
Speaker 1: or hardware support, or if the company that made it
Speaker 1: goes out of business because that support goes away, Like
Speaker 1: the stuff that is powering and enabling the watch isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily in the watch itself, right, It's provided by a
Speaker 1: company that pushes that stuff out. So when the company
Speaker 1: stops doing that and stops offering support and repairs and such,
Speaker 1: it means that you no longer have a really useful product.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like all those folks who are saying, hey,
Speaker 1: paying seventeen grand for a smart watch is a foolish
Speaker 1: thing to do had at a point anyway. I guess
Speaker 1: that means now I've just got a really expensive paperweight.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. I can't afford anything more than a
Speaker 1: TIMEX digital watch. They did, They actually still make Timex
Speaker 1: digital watches. I don't even wear a watch. I haven't
Speaker 1: worn a watch since the pebbles ceased to exist. I'm rambling.
Speaker 1: We're done here. This is what COVID does to my brain.
Speaker 1: I apologize, but I do have a couple of articles
Speaker 1: I want to recommend. First up is an article in
Speaker 1: Wired that's titled Men Overran, a job fare for women
Speaker 1: in Tech. This article is written by Amanda Hoover, and
Speaker 1: it tells the story of how the Grace Hopper Celebration
Speaker 1: found itself absolutely overflowing with quote unquote self identifying males
Speaker 1: at an event meant to help women and non binary
Speaker 1: tech workers advance their careers or establish their careers. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave my own commentary right there, except to
Speaker 1: add in a the little bit that the event took
Speaker 1: place in Orlando, Florida, and I expect that we're going
Speaker 1: to see various conventions and conferences, perhaps seek venues in
Speaker 1: states other than Florida due to various issues within that state.
Speaker 1: But we'll leave it there anyway, I recommend that article again.
Speaker 1: That one is titled Men Overran a job fare for
Speaker 1: women in Tech, and you can find it in Wired.
Speaker 1: The second article I want to recommend this week is
Speaker 1: from NPR's Jennifer Ludden, so you can find this on
Speaker 1: NPR dot org. The article is titled Los Angeles is
Speaker 1: using AI to predict who might become homeless and help
Speaker 1: before they do. Now, I wanted to include this article
Speaker 1: because most of the time, y'all, I cover stories that
Speaker 1: put AI in a pretty critical or even negative light.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't necessarily mean AI itself is bad. Right.
Speaker 1: AI is not necessarily bad on its own, it's how
Speaker 1: we use it. This article outlines how Los Angeles' Department
Speaker 1: of Health Services is leveraging artificial intelligence to get much
Speaker 1: needed aid to people before they find themselves homeless. So
Speaker 1: I think it's a worthy read because it does remind
Speaker 1: us that artificial intelligence doesn't have to be the boogeyman.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be something that is putting people
Speaker 1: out of work. It doesn't have to be something that is,
Speaker 1: you know, compromising your privacy or security. It can be
Speaker 1: something that ends up being life changing in a good
Speaker 1: way if we are using it properly and in applications
Speaker 1: that have a positive outcome. So I recommend that article
Speaker 1: as well, especially if you need like a little bit
Speaker 1: of inspiration in your day to think of, hey, this
Speaker 1: is a really cool way to try and help people.
Speaker 1: And it's also very realistic, Like if you read that article,
Speaker 1: you will see that they are very clear and forthright
Speaker 1: about how their approach is moving the needle. But it's
Speaker 1: not like it's a magic pill that solves all problems.
Speaker 1: So I recommend checking it out. Okay, that's it. I
Speaker 1: gotta stop talking because I keep having to pause this
Speaker 1: show so that I can cough my head off, and
Speaker 1: I just want to be able to go cough my
Speaker 1: head off without having to start up the show again. Also,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you could hear it. My dog
Speaker 1: barked earlier when I was talking. You can tell how
Speaker 1: tired I am by the fact that I didn't go
Speaker 1: back and re record and have it without my dog
Speaker 1: barking in the background. But when I'm coughing this much,
Speaker 1: I just can't afford to do that. All right, I
Speaker 1: hope all of you out there are doing really well,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, app podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.